I'm doing all these interviews with the British press, the Italian press, and others. They all want to talk about this stuff. I don't have a stance; I don't have a go-to thing to say about any of this.

Why are the mainstream buzz things rarely contemporary? It doesn't happen very often. It's hard to feel culpable or implicated or even apathetic.

If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door.

My good friend, the poet Kofi Natambu, once said, "Contradiction is how we operate."

I talk about folding it in often with Althea, my girlfriend. She's getting her doctoral degree at Berkeley and she talks about how even when writing these very academic, and, for the most part, serious papers there's just so much going on in her head and heart, and it's a reminder that there's a reason that she's studying these things.

It makes me think about how you hear these young people say, "I see you, man." Or even if you go and watch some basketball game over the summer and the announcer goes, "I see you," and you see that player smile. You know what I mean? That thing of just being recognized, especially when you do a little subtle thing. I don't know.

I co-taught a seminar called Small Group Processes with my professor. I learned so much from it, so much about myself, about groups, how this stuff works. I bring all that stuff to teaching now.